The English manager, Mr. Lumley, had heard of Mlle. Titiens and the
sensation she had made in Germany. So he hastened to Vienna, and made
the most lavish propositions to the young singer that she should appear
in his company before the London public. She was unable to accept his
proposition, for her contract in Vienna had yet a year to run; but,
after some negotiations, an arrangement was made which permitted
Mlle. Titiens to sing in London for three months, with the express
understanding that she should not surpass that limit.
She made her first bow before an English audience on April 13, 1858, as
_Valentine_ in Meyerbeer's _chef d'oeuvre_, Giuglini singing the part of
_Raoul_ for the first time. She did not understand Italian, but, under
the guidance of a competent master, she memorized the unknown words,
pronunciation and all, so perfectly that no one suspected but that she
was perfectly conversant with the liquid accents of that "soft bastard
Latin" of the South. Success alone justified so dangerous an experiment.
The audience was most fashionable and critical, and the reception of the
new singer was of the most assuring kind.
The voice of Mlle. Titiens was a pure soprano, fresh, penetrating, even,
powerful, unusually rich in quality, extensive in compass, and of great
flexibility. It had a bell-like resonance, and was capable of expressing
all the passionate and tender accents of lyric tragedy. Theresa Titiens
was, in the truest, fullest sense of the word, a lyric artist, and
she possessed every requisite needed by a cantatrice of the highest
order--personal beauty, physical strength, originality of conception,
a superb voice, and inexhaustible spirit and energy. Like most German
singers, Mlle. Titiens regarded ornamentation as merely an agreeable
adjunct in vocalization; and in the music of _Valentine_ she sang only
what the composer had set down--neither more nor less--but that was
accomplished to perfection.
As an actress, her tall, stately, elegant figure was admirably
calculated to personate the tragic heroines of opera. Her face at this
time was beautiful, her large eyes flashed with intellect, and her
classical features were radiant with expression; her grandeur of
conception, her tragic dignity, her glowing warmth and _abandon_
rendered her worthy of the finest days of lyric tragedy. She was
thoroughly dramatic; her movements and gestures were singularly noble,
and her attitudes on the stage had classical breadth and largeness,
without the least constraint.
As _Leonora_, in "Trovatore," she was peculiarly successful, and
her _Donna Anna_ literally took the audience by storm, through the
magnificence of both the singing and acting. In June she made her
appearance as _Lucrezia Borgia_. The qualities which this part demands
are precisely those with which Mlle. Titiens was endowed--tragic power,
intensity, impulsiveness. Her commanding figure and graceful bearing
gave weight to her acting, while in the more tender scenes she was
exquisitely pathetic, and displayed great depth of feeling. "Com' è
bello" was rendered with thrilling tenderness, and the allegro which
followed it created a _furore_; it was one of the most brilliant
_morceaux_ of florid decorative vocalism heard for years, the upper C in
the cadenza being quite electrical. At the end of the first and second
acts, the heartrending accents of a mother's agony, wrung from the
depths of her soul, and the scornful courage tempered with malignant
passion, were contrasted with consummate power. It was conceded that
Grisi herself never rose to a greater pitch of dramatic truth and power.
Mlle. Titiens was unable to get an extension of her _congé_, and, much
to the regret of her manager and the public, returned to Vienna early
in the autumn. Instantly that she could free herself from professional
obligation, she proceeded to Italy to acquire the Italian language, a
feat which she accomplished in a few months. Here she met Mr. Smith, the
manager of the Drury Lane Theatre, and effected an arrangement with him,
in consequence of which she inaugurated her second London season on May
3, 1859, with the performance of _Lucrezia Borgia_. Mlle. Titiens sang
successively in the characters which she had interpreted during her
previous visit to London, adding to them the magnificent _rôle_ of
_Norma_, whose breadth and grandeur of passion made it peculiarly
favorable for the display of her genius. Near the close of the season
she appeared in Verdi's "Vêpres Siciliennes," in which, we are told,
"she sang magnificently and acted with extraordinary passion and vigor.
At the close of the fourth act, when _Helen_ and _Procida_ are led to
the scaffold, the conflicting emotions that agitate the bosom of the
heroine were pictured with wonderful truth and intensity by Mlle.
Titiens." From London the singer made a tour of the provinces, where she
repeated the remarkable successes of the capital. At the various musical
festivals, she created an almost unprecedented reputation in oratorio.
The largeness and dignity of her musical style, the perfection of a
voice which responded to every intention of the singer, her splendor
of declamation, stamped her as _par excellence_ the best interpreter of
this class of music whom England had heard in the more recent years of
her generation. Her fame increased every year, with the development
of her genius and artistic knowledge, and it may be asserted that no
singer, with the exception of Grisi, ever held such a place for a long
period of years in the estimate of the English public.